This is just a general question to see if anyone has any information at all.
So how many of the first edition charizard/ blastoise/ venusaur bass set cards do we reckon are out there? I know you’ll have the ones on PSA data base but why about the raw cards?
Is there still a very very slim chance you’re going to be looking in a folder at a car boot/ house clear out and just so happen to come across one? Very very slim chance I know!
I’m just curious to what other people think/ know?
Does anybody know how many were actually printed all those years ago?
I know it’s a very broad question 
It would be interesting to go on Linkedin and try to find former WOTC employees in marketing/sales/procurement to find that answer
None of them will say. WotC would sue them, it’s been tried and we’re never going to get the answer.
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I know there’s 1 1st edition shadowless blastoise in side room filled with junk
Let’s not do that. There’s half a dozen good reasons why they don’t speak up. And I can tell you some of them have been pestered for years and are sick of it.
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Noted.
There are threads on here talking about it but there’s no official number or anything like that. It’s most likely a piece of information that won’t come out and might never be public knowledge. Definitely go through the forum and read the various threads about it as there’s a lot of information in them. I learned a lot that way haha
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Curious what those 5-6 reasons are?
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NDA prevent sharing of information as mentioned by @cullers. Also, the WotC employees I’ve had communication with agree that after the Hasbro purchase took place in 1999 (mainly due to the success of Pokemon) the working conditions and quality of employment went downhill fast. When asked for specifics they almost unanimously request not to discuss it. Then in 2003 WotC sued a couple of its employees, and Nintendo hired away key members of Wizards workforce before the lawsuit happened that left Wizards without the Pokemon license. As Pokemon went through its decline in popularity Wizards went through 9 separate rounds of layoffs. Many ex-employees view Pokemon as the catalyst for greed fueled downturn of WotC that left a lasting sour taste in their mouth. Thirdly, once they’re outed as having been involved with WotC they become a target for inquisitive collectors asking repetitious questions like the one posed here. Lastly, Pokemon never belonged to WotC, was a kids game, and WotC already had MTG which owned by them and was their birthbaby. Most employees preferred Magic and are uninterested in Pokemon.
I could go on some but I think that satisfies the question and I also don’t want to mention more than I should.
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i just dont buy the idea that employees signed an NDA that even mentioned print run numbers
As people said, no one knows what the print run of 1st Ed. Base was. But it was larger than I think you might believe it was. As a point of reference: MTG Beta had a total print run of 7.3 million cards (with 3300 of each rare printed). And it’s entirely uncontroversial (even on this forum you’ll find no one who disputes this) that 1st Edition Base had a significantly larger print run than Beta. There were millions of 1st Ed. Base cards printed. Of course, the vast majority of those are commons and uncommons. For holos, I think that it’s highly likely that the number of any given holo printed was in the low five figures. That’s pretty damn rare when you consider that this was the first release of the first set of the Pokemon TCG – there’s a ton of demand for it. But it’s not rare in the sense that a trophy card is rare.
My point is that it is absolutely possible that you could find 1st Ed. Base cards at a tag sale or flea market or the like. I mean, I literally got an authentic English Championship Arena in a $250 lot I purchased on eBay. That’s a card for which there are almost certainly under 500 copies in circulation. It’s an actually rare card. Still, 1st Ed. Base had a low enough print run (especially relative to Base Unlimited) that the chances are that you won’t find 1st Edition Base randomly at a tag sale or something. But it is certainly possible.
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It’s a condition of employment. It’s an agreement you sign when you’re first hired.
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Madness! Very very helpful, I’m really happy with the cards I’ve found doing what I’ve been doing! Who knows what cards there are lying in someone’s attic not been discovered yet!
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I doubt former WotC employees know. There are people that know and can check it, and that are the account managers at CarteMundi. But they won’t because of client confidentiality. And if this info is out there already, it’s protected by the top 1% of collectors of Base Set so they keep a tighter control on the market they cornered already. Kinda like what happened in MTG with ABU.